The Mass readings are below the commentary.
This week’s liturgy is a true gem and it reminds me of the parable of the buried treasure in the field. A person finds the treasure, and with great joy, he then sells all that has so that he can buy the field with the treasure. In the Gospel, Jesus wants us to know the purpose of our lives. After we understand it well, we want to “sell it all” and do what Jesus wants.
The Ultimate Question We All Ask
I don’t care if you are a Hindu from Bangalor, India, a Muslim from Iran, or just a hillbilly Christian like me from Kentucky/Mexico. Everyone has at some point asked this question: What is the point? What is the point of my life? Why the heck am I here and what am I supposed to do with my life? Should we ask the magic 8-ball? Na, our Creator has the answer.
In this beautiful Gospel, God wants to tell us the answer to the most important question of our lives. ARE YOU READY?!!!!!!
Jesus describes “eternal life” in the Gospel. When he says “eternal” he is not talking about length, he is talking about quality. Eternal life is this- “that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent-Jesus Christ.”
God’s Plan for Us
What the heck does all of that mean? God is perfect and blessed. He is beautiful! In his plan of pure goodness, he created man to make man share in God’s own blessed life. God did this, not because he had to, but because he wanted to. This is a supreme act of love. First of all, God gives us life.
In our ignorance and weakness, we are scattered (divided) by sin, and God calls us back to him so that we can be united as a family of believers. God calls us back by sending his only Son to save and redeem us.1 God is a perfectly loving person. He is SO loving, that he wants to share his perfect love with someone- me and you. We have screwed up our lives, but God has sent his Son to help us come back to God.
We have received that good news and so, Jesus tells us to “ Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.” 2
Again, Jesus is talking about the PURPOSE OF OUR LIVES. Those who know and love God are supposed to share the love of God with others. We are supposed to teach others to obey the commandments (Matthew 28:18-20)3. Then, Jesus makes a promise. I am going to be with you FOREVER. That’s why Jesus is such a good manager. Like any good manager, he goes beyond telling us what to do. Better than any manager, he STAYS with us forever.
AWESOME, that means that not only do you know the meaning and purpose of your life (to know and to love God), you have the most powerful person in the universe as your bodyguard and teacher! Yesssir! Awesome! Again, what is the purpose of our lives? Our purpose is to know and to love God. How do we love him? That’s easy, put his commandments into practice.4
How do we get to know God? There are many ways. The best way to get to know him is the same as the best way to love him- obey his commandments. Obeying is the best way to get to know him because in obeying the commandments, we become imitators of God and so, we get to know what his perfect love is like. We get to know GOD by honoring our parents, by telling the truth always, by being thankful (instead of envious) etc. The commandments give us a sneak preview of God’s perfect love. In other words, we get to know him better.
God is our creator and he is perfect, blessed, and holy. He wants us to experience the same love he experiences. We have already messed up our lives, and in order to help us live the perfect, blessed, holy life that he lives, he has sent his son to rescue us. Jesus asks us to obey his loving commandments and spread the good news of God’s love in order to fulfill his plan for us. God does us a loving service to tell us what we are supposed to do with our lives- we are to know him and to love him.
The Enemy
Jesus calls Satan the father of lies.5 Whatever God wants, Satan wants the opposite. God wants us to know, love and serve him6. In response, Satan wants to put a blindfold on us, he wants us to hate God, and he wants us to serve anything or anyone other than God.
We have an idea of God’s game plan- send Jesus to save us. Let’s look at the Devil’s game plan.
Commandments are For Tired, Miserable, Bored Unhappy Christians
The devil is extremely crafty, manipulative, and smart. He knows that the best way to get to know God is to follow his commandments. So he tries to get us to dislike the commandments. How does he do that? Well, he tells us that obeying the commandments is not fun. Satan tells us that following the commandments is boring and we will be unhappy. However, Satan does not talk to us audibly with his own voice. He uses our friends, media, books, internet etc. Here are examples:
- Jesus says, forgive one another. Donald Trump says, “get even” in his book The Art of the Comeback.
- Jesus says, whoever looks at a woman lustfully, has committed adultery in his heart. Hugh Heffner, the founder of the most popular pornography magazine ever “Playboy“, seems to think that what he is doing is some form of art. The question is, would I want my sisters and daughters in these magazines? Absolutely not, so why should I be looking at someone else’s sister/daughter in an impure way?
- Jesus says that you can’t serve God and money. Rapper “50 cent” says we should “Get Rich or Die Tryin’”
The Liar
The world that we live in, is in violent opposition to the love of our God, who has a loving plan for each of us beginning with the gift of life.
In the Gospel of John (8:31-44) Jesus was talking to Jews “who believed in him” He said, “you belong to your father the devil and you willingly carry out your father’s desires. There is no truth in him. When he tells a lie, he speaks in character, because he is a liar, and the father of lies.”7
First of all, Jesus is talking to those who “believe in him”. This is some tough criticism and he is giving it to people who already believe in him. Do I profess to believe in Jesus? I do. So Jesus is talking to me and you in this gospel! Jesus says that “you belong to the devil and you willingly carry out your father’s desires.” Ouch! The scary thing is that we often don’t even know that we are carrying out the devil’s desires. We already talked about this last week how in sinning we are being missionaries for the devil. We sin willingly, but we need to remember that when we sin, we are serving the enemy of our God. Our God loves us.
The Devil’s Counter-Attacking Plan
A powerful weapon the devil uses is lying. The father of lies tells us things like, “the baby in the womb is not a person.” We believe what he says (as he speaks through others, media, books, magazines, the internet)8 and go on to kill our own children. This is part of the reason why Jesus calls the Devil a “murderer from the beginning”. His lies are so powerful that they have enough influence to KILL. The central point of this discussion is that God is perfect and loving and he has purpose for our lives starting with the day of our birth. The devil knows how beautiful and generous this gift is from God. Naturally, he attacks LIFE just as any military commander would try to stop the main objectives of his enemy. God’s objective is to keep giving us life. The abortion of 50,000,000 American babies since Roe v Wade is the devil’s masterpiece of horror, anguish, pain and death. This is in contrast to God’s beautiful gift of life. The devil IS cunning isn‘t he?!!
Jesus calls himself the way, the truth and the life. Since the devil is opposite Jesus, he is the wrong way, the lie, and the death. Do you believe this is true?
We’ve got to recognize the voice of the Devil when we hear it, and we’ve got to turn away from him- refusing to do what HE wants us to do. How do we recognize the voice of the devil? Anything contrary to what the Bible says9 and what the church teaches is a lie and is exactly what the devil wants us to think.
ANYTHING contrary to what the Bible says and what the Catholic church teaches is a LIE and is exactly what the devil wants us to think.
The Attack on Sexuality
I once asked my brother, “why does the devil attack our sexuality so much?” Why is it that sin is knocking on my door through my sexuality? I told my brother that if the Devil concentrates his efforts on sexuality so much, then sexuality must be important to God. It makes better sense to me now. Sexuality is the means through which we accept God’s supreme gift. That gift is life and all of it’s beauty. Life is first necessary before we can actively know, serve, and love the Lord. The devil had me convinced for many years that sexuality is about entertainment and pleasure. What a LIE! This lie helps in his battle against God.
A Picture Of Satan
Imagine this image in your head. Jesus extends his hand. With his word, babies are created and they are floating towards a crowd of people. Jesus says, “here is life!“ The devil is in front of this crowd between Jesus and the crowd. The devil has a sword and uses it to chop off one of the baby’s heads. The devil has a large picture on his back and it is a picture of a man and woman having sex. Many of the people in the crowd are hypnotized by this image. Others are yelling, “we don’t want the babies, we don’t want the babies!”
After contemplating these thoughts, I became a little bit angry. I realized that the devil has duped me for a long time. He told me that sex was about having fun, not about having babies. This way, he got me to oppose the birth of children- God’s greatest blessing. I am angry at the devil and I want to fight him. I even felt like I was suiting up for a war against him. The truth is, we are ALL in this war whether we know it or not. Which side are YOU on?
The Point
- God is love and he wants us to experience his love. That’s the reason why he made us.
- God’s great gift to us is life. The purpose of our lives is to know, to love, and to serve God. This is our perfect response to his gift of life.
- The best way to know, love and serve God, is to follow the commandments. By doing this, we get to KNOW him, we express our LOVE of him, and we SERVE him.
- Jesus tells us to go out and spread the good news, but he also says that he is coming with us on our mission.
- The Devil does not want us to know the purpose of our lives. So, he lies to us through the television, books, friends, and other means.
- Since God’s great gift to us is life itself, the Devil is violently opposed to life. He attacks life through promiscuity, pornography, abortion, and contraception- anything it takes to stop life.
Real Life
This past week, my friend and I went to Washington D.C. to fight against the organization Planned Parenthood via a protest outside of their clinic. Planned Parenthood is responsible for over 100,000 abortions per year in the U.S. Remember that earlier, I quoted the Catechism which says that we are “scattered and divided by sin”. It’s true we are. But for a little while last Friday afternoon, I felt a real unity at the protest. I was with Baptists, Evangelicals and Christians of many denominations. We were united in one cause: to stop the killing of innocent children. In sin we are separated, but in doing God’s will we are united in love. It was a gorgeous sunny day, and there was beautiful green grass in front of that clinic of death. It was a warm day of about 75 degrees. My heart grew warmer as we joined an African American preacher in singing:
“There is power, power, wonder-working power, in the blood, of the lamb. There is power, power, wonder-working power in the precious blood of the lamb”.
In the middle of our singing, a man came by and told us nicely to stop singing because we were disturbing some students. In retrospect, I am reminded that this war between God and the Devil is very real. That man probably wasn’t even aware whose side he was supporting.
There were only 50 of us outside of that clinic last Friday afternoon, but within 24 hours, the story had reached CNN, FOX news, and other agencies. Using 50 people10, God delivered his message to an audience perhaps in the millions. I believe Jesus when he says, “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations…and behold I AM WITH YOU UNTIL THE END OF THE AGE.” Jesus keeps his promises. If you believe that, lift your voice. At mass this Sunday when the Eucharistic minister says, “This is the Body of Christ” say AMEN! When Jesus said he would be with us to the end, he was serious.
Our God is an AWESOME God.
Reading 1
Acts 1:12-14
After Jesus had been taken up to heaven the apostles
returned to Jerusalem
from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem,
a sabbath day’s journey away.
When they entered the city
they went to the upper room where they were staying,
Peter and John and James and Andrew,
Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew,
James son of Alphaeus, Simon the Zealot,
and Judas son of James.
All these devoted themselves with one accord to prayer,
together with some women,
and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers.
Responsorial Psalm
Ps 27:1, 4, 7-8
R. (13) I believe that I shall see the good things of the Lord in the land of the living.
or:
R. Alleluia.
The LORD is my light and my salvation;
whom should I fear?
The LORD is my life’s refuge;
of whom should I be afraid?
R. I believe that I shall see the good things of the Lord in the land of the living.
or:
R. Alleluia.
One thing I ask of the LORD;
this I seek:
To dwell in the house of the LORD
all the days of my life,
That I may gaze on the loveliness of the LORD
and contemplate his temple.
R. I believe that I shall see the good things of the Lord in the land of the living.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Hear, O Lord, the sound of my call;
have pity on me, and answer me.
Of you my heart speaks; you my glance seeks.
R. I believe that I shall see the good things of the Lord in the land of the living.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Reading II
1 Pt 4:13-16
Beloved:
Rejoice to the extent that you share in the
sufferings of Christ,
so that when his glory is revealed
you may also rejoice exultantly.
If you are insulted for the name of Christ, blessed are you,
for the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.
But let no one among you be made to suffer
as a murderer, a thief, an evildoer, or as an intriguer.
But whoever is made to suffer as a Christian should not be ashamed
but glorify God because of the name.
Gospel
Jn 17:1-11a
Jesus raised his eyes to heaven and said,
“Father, the hour has come.
Give glory to your son, so that your son may glorify you,
just as you gave him authority over all people,
so that your son may give eternal life to all you gave him.
Now this is eternal life,
that they should know you, the only true God,
and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ.
I glorified you on earth
by accomplishing the work that you gave me to do.
Now glorify me, Father, with you,
with the glory that I had with you before the world began.
“I revealed your name to those whom you gave me out of the world.
They belonged to you, and you gave them to me,
and they have kept your word.
Now they know that everything you gave me is from you,
because the words you gave to me I have given to them,
and they accepted them and truly understood that I came from you,
and they have believed that you sent me.
I pray for them.
I do not pray for the world but for the ones you have given me,
because they are yours, and everything of mine is yours
and everything of yours is mine,
and I have been glorified in them.
And now I will no longer be in the world,
but they are in the world, while I am coming to you.
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1- CCC 1 - The 1st 2 paragraphs of this email are based on CCC 1 & 2 with direct quotes
2- Matthew 28:18-20
3- Also, see last week’s Mass Excitement entitled “Are you a missionary for God or the Devil?”
4- please read last week’s Mass Excitement #9 if you want to know how and why to obey the commandments.
5- John 8:44
6- Notice I include “to serve” here. To know and to love God perfectly, is to serve him.
7- John 8:31-44
8- Visit www.plannedparenthood.com where they call a baby a “pregnancy” which you can terminate and where they claim that there is no such thing as post-abortive trauma or that it is rare. Personally, everyone I’ve ever spoken to who has had an abortion has experienced significant emotional trauma afterwards.
9- the Bible must be read in context of the entire book. Otherwise, it will not make sense, will cause confusion, and may lead us to
10- I am sure there were many others who made this protest happen, yet did not attend.
Final note: This week’s message of the liturgy speaks of the purpose of our lives. In the 1st reading, you can see that the apostles have understood the good news of God. They entered the city with joy and “devoted themselves to prayer”. In the second reading, God wants to remind us that after we hear the good news, and we act accordingly, we will suffer as Christians. Thanks be to God, we get to imitate Jesus in all that he does.
By the way, I encourage you (if you know how to draw or paint) to draw the image I described of the Jesus, the devil, and the crowd. Ask God what to do with his painting/drawing.
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